BEFORE: Just a few more school-related films before I move on to another topic, but like a lot of topics so far this year, this one's about to take a dark turn in a few days. Linking from "Tape", Uma Thurman was also in "Beautiful Girls" with David Arquette (last seen in "Muppets From Space").
THE PLOT: A journalist enrolls in high school as part of her research for a story.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "21 Jump Street" (Movie #1,379)
AFTER: We've all said it - I've said it myself a few times here in these missives: "If I could do it over, man, things would be different." And by different we all hope they'd be better, but there are no guarantees. We'd like to think that the knowledge we got in college and after, would have helped us navigate the tricky social politics of teendom, but what if it didn't? What if we ended up back in the same roles, the same patterns, where we found ourselves before? A true nightmare, right?
That's what happens in this film to our reporter character - note to IMDB, she does not go back to her "old school", she goes to a different school. Wouldn't want to run into any tenured teachers you knew the first time around, right? The whole "fish out of water" concept works well with these high-school films - a girl moves to town from Africa, a teacher moves to London from Africa, and now this. This is probably a screenwriting short-cut, the main character's finding his/her way in a new school, which symbolizes the outsider status that many of us felt.
At first glance, the main character here, Josie, seems to be all over the place. She works as a copy editor for a newspaper, which means she gets to correct everyone's grammar, and I can appreciate that. (Jesus, am I that annoying when I correct people's grammar?) But if she's so smart, why does she get so stupid when she goes back to school? Is she smart, or stupid? Ah, what the movie failed to make clear at first is that she's book-smart, but socially inept - and sending her back to high-school is like throwing a lame gazelle in front of a pack of cheetahs.
So, though she manages to avoid her old nickname of "Grossie Josie", she still ends up at the bottom of the social order, befriended by nerds and joining the math team - but just as in "Mean Girls", when she gets the chance to transition to a higher social circle, she takes it. Can't anyone just be happy doing well on the math team? I'd rather be king of the nerds than one of the popular kids - better to rule in hell than serve in heaven, right?
The other problem I had was that she didn't get to change her social status until her brother also re-enrolled in school and spread some cool rumors about her - then she didn't really accomplish it on her own, did she? True change should come from within, no? Not some outside influence. Again, I'm probably overthinking things, because I've clearly already given this more thought than the screenwriter ever did. Again, it's all about shortcuts - let's get to some cathartic moment the easy way.
There were other inconsistencies - Josie is attracted to a popular student, but also to her English teacher. Which is it? Pick a horse and run with it, but you can't move the story in BOTH directions. Why did the promiscuous best friend character suddenly decide that's not who she really wanted to be, what motivated THAT change? And did the brother really think that he could play high-school ball again and get another chance at the minor leagues? Because they (apparently) never check your age when they start paying you a minor-league salary.
What have we really learned here - that it's OK to toy with people's lives for a newspaper article? It's OK to lie to get a baseball contract? That it's all right for a teacher to be attracted to a student, provided she knows the Latin origin of a few words? That some writer doesn't know the difference between the prom and a Halloween costume contest? (Or he couldn't decide which one he wanted in this story...)
Yesterday I read an article of recollections in response to a new Springsteen biography, written by someone who was in a fledgling Jersey band at the time, but also interviewed Bruce for his campus newspaper. He wrote something about the part he might have played in influencing Springsteen's career, since his article found its way to Bruce's record label, alerting them to the fact that he was unhappy with their management. That's all well and good, but the new article was completely self-indulgent, toggling between idol worship and self-promotion. The goal of a reporter should be to disappear, and find a way to NOT make the article all about oneself. When the reporter becomes the story, objectivity goes out the window, and unfortunately I think that's what happened to Josie.
NITPICK POINT: For a woman to complain about how she's never had that grand romantic first-kiss experience. Excuse me, but isn't she PART of that equation - one half of the kiss? Why can't she go out and make it happen for herself? Yeah, OK, she's socially awkward, but there's a key out there for every lock - isn't that what the equal rights movement was all about? Depicting a modern woman as so passive about it just seems like an antiquated notion.
Also starring Drew Barrymore (last seen in "50 First Dates"), Michael Vartan (last seen in "One Hour Photo"), John C. Reilly (last seen in "The River Wild"), Molly Shannon (last seen in "The Five-Year Engagement"), Garry Marshall, Octavia Spencer (last seen in "Seven Pounds"), Jessica Alba (last seen in "Little Fockers"), Marley Shelton, Leelee Sobieski (last seen in "Public Enemies"), Jeremy Jordan, with a cameo from James Franco (last seen in "Rise of the Planet of the Apes").
RATING: 4 out of 10 bananas
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